My Life and Welcome To It

Another reason why I love Oakland...

2008-12-23T23:55:04Z

J's best friend moved over the summer from Oakland up to Albany (Albany, California, that is -- north of Berkeley)(for access to better public schools) -- and Josie decided that the perfect Christmas present for her would be an "I Hella (heart) Oakland" T-shirt. To get this, she went to a store near her Dad's house: Santa's Crib. (This is usually a gift shop for Everette and Jones Barbecue, renamed for the season.)

But wait, as if I Hella Heart Oakland and Santa's Crib weren't enough, there's more: arriving at the shop yesterday the kids were greeted by an African-American Santa who gave them candy canes -- and they got a photo with him (and with a cutout of Barack Obama -- of which you can only see the torso in the picture but somehow I still knew) for free.

I hella heart Oakland.

Highlights of 2008!

2008-12-18T17:14:29Z

Before I get to hopes/resolutions for next year, here are the highlights for this one:

1. Our two week trip to Italy in August (some pictures up here:http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathask/collections/72157608115858808/ -- I'm getting them up bit by bit)

2. Josie's new kitten Chi. (Someday I'll get up some pictures of her, too.)

3. Season 4 of So You Think You Can Dance.

Birthday Birthday!

2008-11-20T19:39:49Z

Yup, today is. 44 years young.

And a good one so far (life and day, actually). Back story: the day before my 19th birthday, I was in my junior year at Reed. I played rugby, and that day played the best rugby game of my life. (I found the ball available, grabbed it, and ran, which just didn't happen all that much in my rugby career.)

I went home (the Bourgeois Palace, if anyone remembers it by that name -- Reed owns it now) to shower after the game and before the party -- and found a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a bouquet of balloons, sent by my mom for my birthday! (I think she couldn't get Sunday delivery for the actual day of.)

Then I went to the post-game party which was awesome -- terrific food and drink, people telling me how well I'd played, dancing to David Bowie (Modern Love -- still one of my favorite songs).

And then 19, the year of being 19, totally rocked.

Since then, I've sort of had the superstition that as goes the day before my birthday, so goes my year. (All you empiricists out there are asking if I have other confirming examples. Well no, not really, but I don't let that stop me. Give me long enough and I'll twist some facts around to confirm the theory.)

I told Joe this story last weekend. And yesterday I got home from work and found in my living room, on a glitter-covered coffee table (J's touch) a bouquet of balloons (purple! my favorite) and a basket of goodies -- chocolate chip cookies, goat cheese and nice crackers, almonds, a jar of brandied peaches (oh, *yum*! although I haven't tried them yet -- need ice cream to go with).

So it's looking to be a good one this year ... and did I mention that I have the most awesome boyfriend on the face of the planet?

(And today is shaping up pretty nicely, too.)

fun quiz

2008-10-23T17:53:58Z

This really was fun to take:

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test...

Conscientious, Fulfilled, and Spiritual

15 Renaissance, 9 Islamic, 4 Ukiyo-e, -19 Cubist, -20 Abstract and -5 Impressionist!

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence affected literature, philosopy, religion, art, politics, science, and all other aspects of intellectual enquiry. Renaissance artists looked at the human aspect of life in their art. They did not reject religion but tended to look at it in it's purest form to create visions they thought depicted the ideals of religion. Painters of this time had their own style and created works based on morality, religion, and human nature. Many of the paintings depicted what they believed to be the corrupt nature of man.

People that like Renaissance paintings like things that are more challenging. They tend to have a high emotional stability. They also tend to be more concientious then average. They have a basic understanding of human nature and therefore are not easily surprised by anything that people may do. They enjoy life and enjoy living. They are very aware of their own mortality but do not dwell on the end but what they are doing in the present. They enjoy learning, but may tend to be a bit more closed minded to new ideas as they feel that the viewpoint they have has been well researched and considered. These people are more old fashioned and not quite as progressive. They enjoy the finer things in life like comfort, a good meal, and homelife. They tend to be more spiritual or religious by nature. They are open to new aesthetic experiences.

Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy

Jif

2008-07-31T18:17:50Z

Jif

I am the choosy mother who chooses Jif.
Desperate in 7-11, at ten o’clock on Wednesday night,
because I need to get the dog to take his meds.
(Choosy himself, he’s learned
to pick the pills out of a gourmet sausage,
rejects outright
the cheap hot dogs he used to gobble down.)

Yes, I am a choosy mother,
one who makes choices every day, every minute,
choices that have led me here, to stare
at the last, dusty jar of peanut butter
on the fluorescent lit shelf
amidst the cups o’ noodles
and boxes of mac ‘n cheese.

Here with no choice
but to buy,
and go home.

Thank you.

2008-06-04T18:14:55Z

One of the stupid things I do in my life is periodically to get mad at my friends for not paying attention to me. I'll go months and months and not hear from people who are important to me and I'll dig in my heels and refuse to call them (or e-mail, or whatever) because it's always me calling them, never the reverse. Then eventually I realize I'm being stupid and I call.

I'm going through that realization right now, and thinking of how much I owe to all the people who stand by me in my life, in real life and on line, how much they all -- you all -- deserve to have me make the effort to say hello, check in, and offer my support as best I can.

So, to all of you who read my livejournal (and whose journals I read): Thank you. Thank you for caring. Thank you for offering your support and sometimes advice. Thank you for amusing me and bringing me useful information and reminding me that so much of what I go through, others also are going through -- I am not alone.

You matter to me. Thank you.

Meme

2008-05-20T21:50:36Z

What were you doing five years ago?

Working for the State Assembly Judiciary Committee, taking care of my kids (then ages 6 and 3!). That summer was when I began to make plans to move to the Bay Area.

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?

Conference call on insurance coverage issues (check)
Call to discuss filing of Case Management Statement (check)
Scoop dog poo from yard, water garden.
Wrap Joe's birthday gift.
Do back exercises and yoga.

What are five snacks you enjoy?

Ritter Alpine milk chocolate
Chile-lime cheetos (don't have them very often, though)
Tortilla chips with salsa
Cherries!
Fuji apples

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

Set up my own foundation and spend time deciding what projects to fund
Buy and furnish a really really nice house with lovely garden.
Hire help to keep the house clean and the garden tended
Explore running for office
Buy an apartment in NYC.

What are five of your bad habits?

Biting my nails
On-line time wasters (like this!)
Putting off making phone calls
Eating in response to stress.
Bad posture at my desk.

What are five places where you have lived?

Brooklyn, NY
Portland, OR
New Haven, CT
Sacramento, CA
Oakland, CA

Book Meme

2008-05-08T19:40:16Z

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.

Bold the ones you've read; underline the ones you read for school; italicize the ones you started but didn't finish; and place an asterisk beside the ones you liked and would (or did) read again or recommend, even if you read them for school in the first place.

The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir*
Angels & Demons
Anna Karenina
Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World*
The Brothers Karamazov*
The Canterbury Tales
The Catcher in the Rye*
Catch-22
A Clockwork Orange*
Cloud Atlas
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
A Confederacy of Dunces*
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Cryptonomicon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote*
Dracula*
Dubliners*
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Emma*
Foucault's Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
The God of Small Things
The Grapes of Wrath*
Gravity's Rainbow
Great Expectations
Gulliver's Travels*
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Historian: a novel
The Hobbit
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
The Inferno*
Jane Eyre*
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell*
The Kite Runner
Les Misérables
Life of Pi: a novel*
Lolita*
Love in the Time of Cholera*
Madame Bovary*
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch
Middlesex*
Mrs. Dalloway
The Mists of Avalon*
Moby Dick
The Name of the Rose
Neverwhere*
1984*
Northanger Abbey
The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
The Once and Future King
One Hundred Years of Solitude*
On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*
Oryx and Crake
A People's History of the United States: 1492-present*
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man*
Pride and Prejudice*
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran
The Satanic Verses
The Scarlet Letter
Sense and Sensibility
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Silmarillion
Slaughterhouse-five
The Sound and the Fury
A Tale of Two Cities
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
The Time Traveler's Wife
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
The Three Musketeers
Ulysses
The Unbearable Lightness of Being*
Vanity Fair
War and Peace*
Watership Down
White Teeth

A pretty good day

2008-05-03T03:10:46Z

I didn't think I was going to like today, but most of the way through
it, I'm thinking it was a good day in the way I want my days to be
good. Up with the kids and got them out the door and off to school.
Showered and dressed and went off to the grocery store, came home and
put away groceries (mostly, some fruit awaits washing) and started
some chicken soup with leftover chicken I couldn't bear to throw away.

Heated up leftover brisket and made a salad for lunch. Changed into
my suit (my purple suit! but really, it looks quite professional) and
stopped by the office, got ready to go to court for a "case management
conference" (judge sits down with both sides to set up what's
happening for the next few months). Went in, and yay, the settlement
we thought wasn't going to happen is almost certainly going to happen.
(As the judge set the next conference, I looked at my datebook and
realized, oops, completely spaced the parent-teacher conference I had
yesterday. Called teacher and left message on way back, hope I can do
a make-up.) Back to office to drop off the file, home, brief check of
e-mail, go get older daughter and her friend, take to softball, pick
up dog's medication refill, home.

Now I have to get younger daughter, and take her over to the softball
field -- their Dad is picking up from there, it's his weekend with the
kids. And then dinner: I'm planning pork chops, collard greens,
cornbread.

Yesterday, my younger daughter, responding to a cover of a local
magazine that had an article about "work-life balance," asked me
whether I would rather have an amazing career (making a million
dollars a day!) or whether I'd rather be the most amazing mom, "making
really good decisions" (I love that at 9 she gets that that's what's
hard) and having my kids turn out fantastic. I told her, no contest,
all I'd want the million dollars a day for anyhow was to help my kids.
(Yeah, that leaves out the other things I get from working.)

Kind of clarified things for me, as to why I've made some of the
choices that right now I'm feeling uncertain about. But today is a
day I can say: I'm glad to have both the career and the family.

Checkup

2008-03-12T18:12:04Z

Went for my annual physical. I love my doctor. She pays attention. She remembers what we've talked about in the past. She actually seems to ... gasp! care.

Basically, bottom line is -- I'm fine. Of course, that's pending me going in for the mammogram, and the cholesterol test, and getting back the pap smear results.

On the achy knees issue (the reason I've recently given up running) she acknowledged the benefit of exercising outside and said said, if you want to run sometimes, take ibuprofen first, and run on a soft surface (she suggested the track at UC Berkeley, open on weekends, she says). (She's my age, roughly -- we ruefully discussed the fact that you just get achier as you get older.) She gave me a referral to a physical therapist for my current chronic but low level one side low back pain, after I said yeah, I think it would be worth it to go and take care of this. She noted, looking up my nose, that I seem to have some allergies going on (post nasal drip) but respected my statement that the symptoms were barely noticeable and therefore I did not want to take anything for them.

I got my ten year tetanus booster -- arm is a little achy but not too bad; I took some aspirin.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T18:32:54Z

We've already had the Valentine making frenzy, followed by the Valentine finishing frenzy (involving hot glue and Hershey's kisses), and the Valentine's morning dog-gets-at-Valentine-with-hot-glued-kisses, and a box of chocolates for me! and roses, for Joe! and more to come, all very festive. And here's my box, come say hi!

Valentine Postbox

leave kathas a valentine's message

get your own valentine postbox

Resolved:

2008-01-07T18:59:33Z

My resolutions this year are in a different direction -- I actually feel like I'm doing what I need to on the exercise/healthy eating/getting organized etc. etc. fronts -- it's a process, but I'm getting into /continuing/extending some good habits.

So I have two resolutions this year. One is simple: use less plastic. Mostly, I intend to do this by bringing my own bags everywhere -- I already do for groceries, but am starting to do it for drug store runs and the like.

The other is more complicated. It boils down to "Do more to help others." But it's more complicated than that. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my career and my idea that I'll get some job that will be the wonderful public-interest thing that I really really want to do, and I'm coming around to thinking, well, maybe I will change jobs and maybe I won't but in the meantime I need to put more time (and more money, in the way of donations) towards helping others: probably through some form of pro bono work (volunteer legal work for people who need but can't afford attorneys -- there are many programs through which I can do this).

Christmas This Year

2007-12-27T19:02:07Z

I kind of loved this Christmas. It just never got into the
over-the-top, too much stuff, too much running around after stuff,
etc. kind of thing. Early Hannukah helped -- the stuff was more
spread out over time, and Hannukah was more mellow.

As December progressed I got the pleasure of outside lights (courtesy
Joe) and a big beautiful tree (ditto) and we had our party which was
busy-making but a big success with yummy things to eat (mostly Joe
again). Friends and neighbors not only came, but brought gifts --
post party we had many bottles of wine and a big box of really good
chocolates and a few other things I'm forgetting. One neighbor was so
taken by the gingerbread cookies Joe made (straight out of Fanny
Farmer) she asked for the recipe and then baked us a pecan pie (which
arrived a couple of days before Christmas).

Two weekends before Christmas, without my kids, I baked chocolate-mint
snaps which turned out very pretty and yummy and were put in little
treat bags to hand around to various people at school (with Peet's
gift certificates).

I coordinated all the parents in my older daughter's class to
contribute to one big gift (Amazon gift card) for her teacher (I'm the
"room parent") -- and it worked, we gave her quite a significant amount!

Weekend before Christmas, I did cookie baking with the kids (and one
of D's friends who was with us). I've posted here before that this is
not my favorite activity, but it gets less-annoying every year; now we
have Christmas cookies in the house, and we had some to set out for
Santa. My kids, who no longer believe in Santa, nonetheless assured
me that he likes our cookies best because he knows how much fun we
have making them. We also hit the big Thrift Town (in the process
winding up getting excellent barbecue ribs for lunch) and they did
some shopping there.

The kids were with their Dad Christmas eve/morning. Joe and I had
Christmas eve dinner at his brother's house -- yummy duck enchiladas
(for some reason they always serve duck at Christmas; the enchiladas
were an attempt to get creative) and Joe made dessert:
gingerbread-pear trifle out of the current Sunset magazine, which was
one of the best desserts I've ever eaten. They also had quenelles
from a bakery and we got leftovers of both to take home.

A quiet Christmas morning; I gave Joe a big fuzzy bathrobe and he gave
me earrings. Then early afternoon the kids came home and opened their
gifts: We actually had a Wii under the tree for J (kudos to her Dad,
who scored it from a coworker) and a Nintendo DS Lite for D (and some
other small gifts). The kids spent most of the day playing with
these. I was proud of my kids for their thrift shopping: I got four
lovely sweaters (pullover type).

Joe made a pork roast for Christmas dinner which was indescribably
delicious and of which we have lots left.

So, it's good. Now I just have to survive a week and a half of my
kids home from school -- day after Xmas was filled with much squabbling.

The Starlight Night

2007-11-09T16:49:00Z

Shamelessly taken from a friend's blog:

LOOK at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!--
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.
Buy then! bid then!--What?--Prayer, patience, alms, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn, withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

Concert Meme

2007-09-12T17:54:47Z

Copy this list. Leave in the bands you've seen perform live, delete the ones you haven't, and add new ones that you have seen until you reach 25. An asterisk means the previous person had it on their list, two asterisks means the last two people who did this before you had that band on their list, and so on.

1. The Grateful Dead ****
2. Jane's Addiction
3. Nine Inch Nails
4. Ice T
5. Siouxsie and the Banshees
6. Living Colour
7. Butthole Surfers
8. Rollins Band
9. Elvis Costello*
10. David Bromberg Band
11. Plasmatics
12. Duran Duran
13. Tom Rigney & Flambeau
14. Funkengruven
15. Tito Puente
16. Lavay Smith and the Red Hot Skillet Lickers
17. Sun Ra *
18. Fred Frith
19. Dumi
20. Jonathan Richman **
21. Johnny Winter*
22. Benny Goodman
23. San Francisco Symphony
24. Eroica Trio
25. Four Day Creepers

My notes: one, bands 2-8 were all at the first Lollapalooza and that's where I saw them. Two, I saw this in several people's LJs and starred for anyone who listed that band. Three, note that I've stretched this by including classical (and in fact I saw the Eroica Trio *with* the SF Symphony, so maybe that's cheating) but there's lots and lots of bands I've seen that I just don't remember the names of -- in Sacramento I went to tons of free outdoor concerts by good local bands, but I don't remember most of the band names; similarly, I saw lots of bands at socials when I was at Reed but don't remember who they were. I have listed a few memorable local bands.

Borscht on the Fourth of July

2007-07-03T22:12:12Z

I was going to say that I really have nothing to say about that, except I might make some and I thought it was funny. (I've been meaning to make it, I've got the ingredients, and then I've got a day off, right?)

But then I realized that tomorrow is also the fifteenth anniversary of my mother's death, and she loved cold borscht. (This particular cold borscht -- it's my grandmother's recipe.) So if I do make it, it can be memorial borscht.

In honor of Mother's Day...

2007-05-11T23:16:05Z

Three things that remind me of my (late) mother:

1. Twilight walks. I usually go for a half hour walk when my older
daughter has her piano lesson at 7 p.m. Her teacher lives in a lovely
neighborhood, and as the days have grown longer the walk has gone from
being right at and after sunset to being just before. The sky darkens
to the deep and gemlike blue you see at that time of day; the streets
are quiet. My mother loved that time of the evening and the color of
the sky then. She, like me, was a dutiful woman whose enjoyment of
the evening would have been heightened by the knowledge that the walk
was a healthy thing to do. I often find myself imagining, on my
walks, that she is in Oakland visiting and is walking beside me. It's
a wonderful thing to imagine my mother alive and well and walking at
age 74; this Fourth of July it will be 15 years since she died.

2. Prairies. My mother grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and while I
was growing up we went there every summer to visit my grandparents.
We'd make the hour long drive up to my grandparents' summer cottage in
Gimli, a little town on the Western shore of Lake Winnipeg. We'd play
"counting cows" and watch for the five creeks between Winnipeg and
Gimli. Every year my mother would look out across the endless fields
and sky and she'd sigh and say how beautiful it was, how much she
loved the prairie.

3. Medical dramas on TV. My mother was a pathologist (and clinical
professor of pathology); her favorite TV show ever was Quincy, M.E.
Nowadays there seem to be a lot of TV shows that have pathologists in
some kind of prominent role; back then Quincy was the only one. My
mother loved to watch any medical show and make the diagnosis before
anyone on the show did; she took after her general practitioner father
in being a talented diagnostician. She read murder mysteries for fun
and I think it was a deep pleasure to her to watch mysteries that her
own particular expertise could solve. I watched House the other day
and thought how much she would have liked to figure out the diagnosis.
I of course had no clue until he explained it all at the end and even
then didn't know if the details had been right; I wish I could have
been watching with her.

I'm Nobody

2007-04-30T20:19:35Z

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
by Emily Dickinson

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one's name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!

Who do you like in '08?

2007-04-17T17:20:30Z

So, if I want to give some early money to a Democratic presidential candidate, which one should I give to, and why?

My own take: I'm thinking either Edwards or Obama. (And yes, I need to find out more about what all of the candidates are saying.) I feel like Edwards has put forward a bit more substantive of a platform, and I like his emphasis on addressing our country's growing economic divide, but on the other hand Obama does seem to be pulling support and getting people excited, which is good. (No, I can't quite see giving to Hillary -- less liberal, and sometimes off-putting. Although I've warmed to her somewhat since the run for the primaries began.)

Here's your chance to garner some cash support for your candidate of choice -- let me know what you think.

Second Grade Spelling Words

2007-01-17T17:43:33Z

Three sheep moan --
wait, dread beast.
Deaf peas read.
Sheet, cheek, throat:
Coast mail meant thread,
cream,
wheel.

An Actual Post!

2006-08-15T17:00:09Z

A few observations regarding life with my kids away (on vacation with their Dad):

1. I've been good about working out -- I'm doing what I aspire to do all the time, rotating yoga (at home, usually, but sometimes class), my light-weights at home circuit workout, and running, do each of these twice a week (and one day off). Plus I walk to the bus to work, and home from the bus (about a mile each way) some days. That combined with 5 days of South Beach Phase I (after which I've gone back to just eating regularly, in spite of trying to do Phase II) has let me drop about three pounds in the past 10 days, and I'm firmer. I'm hoping I can keep up the exercise when the kids get home but it'll take some discipline.

2. I'm not using the time to work extra hard (which would earn me more money -- I get paid by the hour). For whatever reasons, I am not that into this job; I am always distracted by the rest of my life. Oh well.

3. Joe and I cooked something I'd had in a restaurant, and it came out great -- cherry crisp with pecans in the topping. Very easy -- a little brown sugar and lemon juice in with the cherries; topping is just oats, flour, butter, brown sugar and pecans.

4. Joe's daughter was with us this past weekend. We went to see A Chorus Line which I loved, but they didn't like the production. For me, I could see that the cast was a little uneven -- the woman who played Cassie just didn't wow me with her dancing in The Music and the Mirror; some of the cast didn't have great voices. But the score and book are so terrific, and the dancing overall was very good. I listened to the cast album of this show over and over and over in high school and it was thrilling to see it on stage again.

5. We also went to see Quinceanera and all of us agreed it was excellent.

6. I'm enjoying having actual leisure time and leisure activities (I haven't even mentioned seeing Little Miss Sunshine the previous weekend, or The Madness of King George on DVD, and TV! oh my gosh I've actually watched a bit of TV! and have gardened, etc. etc.) *but* I am so ready now for the kids to be home.

Watch this space

2006-04-24T17:17:44Z

The two livejournal entries I've been wanting to do but haven't had time:
1. Doing my taxes (a while back -- I filed in March) and having the review of 2005 -- goodness, what a lot we did!

2. Why I never manage to get my hair cut (last haircut was last June or July) -- I don't work Fridays, you'd think I'd get to it, but no: every darn Friday there's something that eats up the supposed "free time" -- I'd like to go through and list it, week by week since I started this job (start of March).

Thinking about giving

2005-09-16T21:10:11Z

I have been reflecting lately on both the inadequacy of my
charitable/political monetary contributions in light of my resources,
and the randomness of what I've given to whom over the years.

So I sat down and thought about how much I want to give each year and
how to distribute it. Without getting into amounts, here's my initial
idea of how to distribute:

Political contributions: 30%, of that 20% national and 10%
state/local. The high level reflects my general assessment that the
best thing I can do for a number of causes I believe in is get more
Democrats elected -- yeah, yeah, I know, but it's a start.

Environmental causes: 20%. I know the obvious suspects for these
donations (and have a few local favorites I'll set aside some money
for, like the California State Parks Foundation because state parks
are important to me) but if anyone has input on which organizations
are most effective on environmental issues, particularly
internationally, I'd like to hear it.

Women's Rights/Civil Rights/Economic Justice/Criminal Justice: 30%. A
lot of different things lumped together, I know. Some money for sure
to Planned Parenthood, national and international; the ACLU; Amnesty
International; need to identify the best groups working on labor
rights internationally and some of the best ones fostering women's
economic independence around the world. (That last is something with
multiple good effects, as I understand it: from what I've read, when
you help women develop some means of supporting themselves and their
families, it tends to encourage education among women, lower birth
rates in those communities -- something with long term environmental
effects, and of course has positive effects in terms of raising the
income of previously low income families). I'd like to give something
to Habitat for Humanity. The Salvation Army, because although I
disagree with some of their approach (I'm not a Christian) they do a
great deal for people in the most desperate circumstances, while
taking very very little for those who work for the organization, and I
admire and support that. Criminal Justice organizations tend to be
combination donations/professional expenses: California Attorneys for
Criminal Justice, my former employer; Drug Policy Alliance, also a
former employer; I need to join the National Lawyers Guild. I'd like
to give something to Habitat for Humanity.

Clearly I need to work more on a detailed plan in this category.

Emergency Response Organizations: 10%. For the Red Cross. Recent
events in the U.S. and internationally show the need.

Reed: 10%. Might adjust slightly to give some money to Oakland
public schools as well.

I probably need to take a percentage point off here and there and
leave some leeway for ad hoc contributions when friends and colleagues
hit me up for this or that cause -- maybe 4% total. I give money to
my kids' school (in addition to tuition) but don't count that as
charity.

meme me!

2005-08-04T18:34:30Z

(meme contagion thanks to cicadabug)
It's been especially interesting to discover who reads friends journals. Satisfy my nosiness and post it in your own journal, won't you?

Do you actually read my journal? If you read me on a regular/semi regular basis, leave me a comment and let me know. Then post this in your journal and find out who reads your journal.

Reminiscence: my first trip to Paris

2005-07-04T21:23:57Z

I just heard “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang on the radio and it brought back the most powerful memories of my first trip to Paris.

Why would Rapper’s Delight bring back memories of Paris? Here’s why, the story of my truly wonderful, truly whacked first trip to Paris. In the spring of my junior year of high school (so, 1980, I was 15) my public Brooklyn high school organized a package deal for a bunch of us to go to Paris during the spring break week, accompanied by two of the school’s French teachers, Madame Damsky and Mademoiselle DeMattia. (Madame Damsky, a woman in her 50s or so, was my homeroom teacher in addition to being a French teacher, and a seriously weird woman. I remember sitting at lunch with her on this trip and having her explain that she always drank bottled water, even back home, because fluoride was a poison. I don’t think I’d seen Dr. Strangelove yet at that point in my life, but looking back it reminds me of nothing so much as the scene where Jack D. Ripper is talking about Purity of Essence. Mademoiselle DeMattia was a pretty polyglot Italian (Italian Italian, not Italian-American) thirty-something who taught most of the upper level French courses so she was who I usually had for French.)

Off we went. I still have the picture. Mme. Damsky with fourteen students (Mlle. DeMattia must have taken the picture), nine African-American girls – no, eight, Rasheida Maharaj was Indian, so one Indian girl, four white girls, and one African-American guy of whom I have no memory whatsoever outside of him being in the photo. Everywhere we went people asked if we were from Africa; I don’t think they quite knew what to make of the fact that we were American. Out of the students, I was the only one who spoke halfway decent French, and indeed, halfway decent French is what I spoke. The entire trip I was in weird, loopy, philosophical mode, having running monologues in my head about culture and art and such like – this was fairly typical of fifteen year old me, but greatly exacerbated by 1) being in Paris, 2) never getting any sleep – aside from the jet lag issue, we did tourist stuff all day and fairly often went out at night, and 3) drinking wine with meals. So the usual loopy philosophical stuff became drunken, sleep-deprived, excited loopy philosophical stuff. Darned if I remember a bit of what, exactly, I was thinking, I think it had to do with authenticity of experience.

Tourist stuff all day: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the bateaux mouches, etc. etc. Good meals at ordinary little cafes. (I had some memorable trout – as in, I still remember it now, 25 years later.) And in the evening, some nightlife -- we went out to nightclubs at least twice. (Three times total, I think – we had an overnight stopover in Spain, for some reason, and I think we hung out in the little nightclub in our hotel that night.) I don’t know what Mlle. DeMattia was thinking, taking 14 American teenagers, 13 of them girls, almost none of whom could get along in French, out to nightclubs. (I don’t think Mme. Damsky even came.) But this is what brings me to Rapper’s Delight – I had the interesting experience of listening to the song in a club and having a couple of French guys ask me what they were singing.

I don’t think I could have told them in English what they were singing (here some of the other members of our group might have done better), in the exact words, let alone French. (Anyone here want to translate, “a hip, hop, hippie to the hippie to the hip hip hop you don’t stop to rock it to the bang bang boogie”?) I did what any self-respecting French student would do, and paraphrased, in a response I remember almost word for word to this day: “Il s’agit d’un homme qui s’appelle “Master Gee,” il est le plus petit de ses amis...” The French guys, who apparently wanted an actual translation, rather quickly lost interest.

We managed to stay late enough to miss the last Metro that night, had no idea how we were going to get back to our hotel. (More of a pensione, really, a little tiny place.) Mlle. DeMattia went over to a guy sitting in a van and started asking him about transportation options; he offered her a ride and I think was rather surprised to discover that she came with fourteen kids. We all managed to fit and got back safely.

As I said, it was a truly wonderful and truly whacked experience. And for all I know I am the only person in the world for whom Rapper’s Delight brings back memories of her first time in Paris; an enviable association to have in one’s life, to be sure.